imagery and music week 12

Question 1

earworms

Answer 1

(aka: stuck song syndrome or involuntary musical imagery)

Question 2

involuntary musical scale

Answer 2

IMIS: floridou et al 2015

Includes four factors:

• Negative valence
• Movement
• Personal reflection
• Help

Personal qualities: why is it that earworm in particular (overplayed or just catchy or emotion attached to it)

Question 3

Why you can’t get that song out of your head

Answer 3

Why the occur?
- Times of low cognitive load (i.e. being bored)
- Mood
- Triggered by recent exposure and news
- Highly individualized (movies, childhood, travel)
- Generally enjoyable

Tactics:
- Chewing gum
- Another song
- Listen to the actual song

Question 4

musical imagery

Answer 4

It has been said that all this music existed in the mind first. Writing it down, playing it on an instrument, recording it, all these are essential if anyone else is going to hear the music but they are secondary to that initial, mysterious act of imagination.

Musical imagery is something almost everyone
knows from everyday experience
* For musicians, musical imagery is much more
powerful and complex compared to the average
person

Question 5

musical mental imagery

Answer 5

Musical mental imagery is the ability to
“hear” melodic sound-sequences with the “mind’s ear” in the absence of external stimulation
* Musicians often rely on musical imagery to guide their performance and to memorize or compose new music

Question 6

Musical imagery involves three modalities what are they?

Answer 6

• Visual - Pianist “seeing” their hands on the keyboards
• Motor/Kinaesthetic - They “feel” the keyboard and finger motions
• Auditory - They “hear” the music being played

Question 7

instruments and imagery

Answer 7

Playing an instrument is among the most complex motor tasks
* Denotes a mental simulation of action
– provides a possibility for the central nervous system to evaluate the consequences of future actions and to shape the motor system in preparation of the actual execution of action

Question 8

speed of musical imagery

Answer 8

Langheim et al. (2002) asked string players to play or imagine playing a familiar piece; the times taken to play and imagine the pieces were highly correlated
* Imagery of related musical sounds and movement can be integrated
– E.g., Haslinger et al. (2005) observed activation in several auditory areas when musicians watched a silent video of someone playing piano keys

Question 9

Neural Basis of Musical Imagery

Answer 9

Imagery of music is based partly on the same neural structures as processing of music
* Neural activity in the auditory cortex can occur in the absence of sound
* This activity likely mediates the phenomenological experience of imagining music
* Interactions between the frontal cortical areas and the auditory cortex are how imagery is created

Question 10

Neural Basis of Musical Imagery and the Effect of Musical Expertise

Answer 10

Investigated whether the mismatch negativity (MMN) can be elicited based on pure imagery of sounds
* Musicians versus non-musicians
* Mismatch negativity (MMN):
– a pre-attentive detection of an unexpected event in a series of repeated acoustic stimuli (the brain’s automatic change detection response)
- Subjects listened to the beginnings of the melodies, and were asked to continue them in their imagination
* Then heard a tone which was either a correct or an incorrect further continuation of the melody
* Used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to compare musicians and non-musicians

Results
- Only in musicians was the imagery strong enough to differentiate between correct and incorrect tones
- Musicians able to elicit an early pre-attentive brain response to unexpected incorrect continuations of the imagined melodies

Question 11

Difference between musicians and non-musicians:

Answer 11

• Possibly due to more expertise memory representations and better processing and computational capacities
• Suggests that long term training in a specific domain changes neural plasticity
• Further suggests that in train musicians, imagery and perception of music share similar neuronal correlates

Question 12

imagery in musical performance

Answer 12

Meta analyses (Driskell et al., 1994; Feltz &
Landers, 1983):
– imagery is most effective for tasks that are more cognitive in nature (e.g., music)

Question 13

research

Answer 13

What is known?
– Imagery improved memory of pianists
– Imagery and physical practice resulted in greatest musical performance effects (trombonists)
– Imagery may be able to substitute for physical
practice when not possible
– Imagery may be best implemented when learning an easier musical piece vs a more complex piece

Question 14

other benefits?

Answer 14

In addition to the performance effects
imagery can…
– Enhance confidence
– Control emotions

Question 15

imagery and classical musicians

Answer 15

Music students (N= 159) completed the
Functions of Imagery Music Questionnaire
(developed for the study)
- results
MG-A not reliable, deleted
CS/CG not strong enough alone, combined

Question 16

why do classical musicians use imagery

Answer 16

Musicians used imagery to:
– Limit distractions
– Recover from an error
– Maintain MT
– Demonstrate confidence
– Overcome fatigue (mental and physical)
– MGM used the most and no differences in gender or years of schooling